See The Sky About to Rain
by theUglySpirit
Summary: Ponyboy doesn't say much about Two-Bit's sister. Two-Bit doesn't talk about her at all. Turns out, there is a lot that he doesn't know. Language, adulty themes.
1. Chapter 1

SE Hinton owns Two-Bit and the Mathews family. She makes reference to Two-Bit having a kid sister. This is my third version of her. I feel like she's an oft-neglected, untapped canon wasteland.

It seems I've been starting a lot of things I can't finish lately. I took a couple of stories down, for which I apologize. I just can't imagine when I'm going to get back to them. This one seemed to have the best chance at getting continued- no real plot, just little bits and pieces of the relationship between Two-Bit and Donna. Reviews and con-crit are very welcome. Two-Bit's voice is a tough one to capture. I don't know if I have it yet.

The title and the quote are from a Neil Young song. It's 1964:

**See the Sky About to Rain**

_Some are bound for happiness,_

_Some are bound for glory,_

_Some are bound to live with less,_

_Who can tell your story?_

I never felt the slightest bit of guilt when my sister dropped out. She made like she didn't care. In fact, she made like she wanted it that way- like she'd been waiting to do it since the day our dad walked out. She did it under the guise of "helping Mom", but really it was great excuse to ditch school and get a job at the sleaziest place possible downtown. Bringing home to cash to help with the bills was a bonus.

She and Mom fought about it in the way that Mom and Donna fight: Mom yells. Donna sits quietly and doesn't make eye contact and then she goes and does what she wants anyway. At first Mom refused to take the money from Donna's sleazy bar job. Then Donna called her bluff and said, "fine, then I'll buy a car", and Mom took the money. That was the last thing she needed: my sister with the potential for long-distance travel.

I had a car. It ran most of the time. One late-summer night, in the fall of '64 before everything went down with Dal and Johnnycake, Donna told me she'd spring for gas if I'd drive her to Oklahoma City. That was an hour away.

"What do you want to do there?" I asked her.

"Can't you just take the gas money?"

"No," I said. I'm supposed to be the big brother and the man of the house to boot. I'm supposed to ask these questions, right? Even if it's really just a bad case of curiousity tightening the noose around the cat's throat rather than me worrying about my little sister's well-being.

"I want to do some shopping," she lied.

"You can shop here. What do you need? I'll swipe it for you."

"I want to go see someone- a friend."

"What's her name? Do I know her?" I'd be up for taking a drive to see a cute girl, even a friend of my sister's.

Donna cocks an eyebrow and avoids looking at me.

"Richie," she says.

"That's a funny name for a girl."

"Good thing he ain't one."

"Who's this Richie guy?"

"I knew him in high school. He went into the Army, and we still write."

I think on that for a minute. There's no Army base in Oklahoma City.

"There's no Army base in Oklahoma City, Donna."

"No, there's not."

"Is he discharged or on the lam?"

She shakes her head. "I can't tell. He's a little vague about it. I thought I ought to go see him. Will you take me, Two-Bit?"

Like I said before, I got this problem with curiousity and cats. I know what happens when the two of them meet, but yet I can't seem to help but follow that cat right on down the path to its doom. She'd piqued my interest- probably did it the way she did on purpose- and now I had to know.

So I drove my little sister to Oklahoma City to meet up with a guy named Richie who was either draft-dodging or crazy enough that they'd Sec 8'd him. He sounded like my kind of guy. In fact, I couldn't wait to meet him, and no way was I sending my little sister down there to meet him alone.

* * *

They fought behind the closed door of a single-room efficiency above a drug store. I waited in the hall and shuffled on my feet and pretended I couldn't hear that he was cutting her loose. My sister knows how to pick 'em, and this dude was right up her alley: smart, well-read, a fast-talker, and bat shit crazy. Two minutes into their conversation and I was ready to put my money on the Army having told him "see you later, pal".

When Donna opened the door a crack and suggested I take a walk, I said, "no way". When Richie opened the door all the way and looked me over to see if he could push me around, I shoved myself off the wall and stood up to my full height. I had a couple of inches and probably twenty-five pounds on him.

Richie said to me, "Why don't you just take her home, man?"

"Why don't you tell me what the problem is?" I asked him. Since I knew I had the upper-hand, I thought maybe I'd play with him a little.

"Take a look around you, buddy. Does this look like the kind of place you want your sister hanging out? I ain't in a position to have a girl right now. It's nothing personal. That's what I've been trying to tell her."

Since I agreed with him completely regarding the surroundings, I said, "I ain't your buddy."

"Whatever, man," Richie said. He looked down at my sister. "You need money, Donna?"

She shook her head. "I got a job."

Her voice was so small, defeated. I ain't the brightest bulb in the box, and it had taken me this long to get what issue it was they were dancing around. It took me a minute longer to deduce that he wasn't just being gentlemanly and offering gas money for the ride home.

"You son of a bitch," I said to him.

"Easy, man," Richie said.

"Don't, Two-Bit," Donna said. She gave me a push and stepped out into the hall with me.

"Donna, go wait in the car," I told her.

"No way. No way in hell."

"You want me to beat him stupid in front of you then?"

"I'd rather you didn't beat him up at all."

"Not your call. One way or another, it's going to happen."

She paused there and looked me and Richie over, probably trying to gauge whether her presence would get me to go easy on him. She's a small girl, not like she could stop me once I got going. She might be able to shriek loud enough to stir up some of the other tenants, but that's about it.

She took one last look at Richie and then said to me, "Fine. Give me the keys."

"You wait for me," I said.

"No shit."

And she walked down the hall towards the stairs.

* * *

She was waiting in the driver's seat with the car running when I came out of the stairwell and on to the street. I tapped on her window and she rolled it down.

"Can you drive?" I asked her. "That asshole's got a jaw like a rock. I think I sprained something."

She shoved over behind the wheel and I got in.

"You want to stop for some ice?" She asked.

"Maybe stop for a fifth of something."

"I got money for that, but you got to buy gin and not bourbon."

"You shouldn't be drinking, should you?"

She shrugged. "It ain't going to matter."

"You gonna to need me to drive you to that too?" I asked her. It wasn't supposed to come out mean like that, but I guess it did. She didn't answer me, just shook her head, and that was the last we ever spoke of it.


	2. Chapter 2

SE Hinton owns The Outsiders.

**See the Sky About to Rain**

Two-

"Your sister's cute, man, but she's a little touched."

Steve Randle has said that to me at least once a week since my sister had turned fourteen. That's almost one hundred and thirty weeks. Always the same thing. This time, though, he added:

"There's a shit storm of rumors flying around about her."

He was leaned under the hood of my car where I couldn't see his face, pretending like he didn't really care. He did, though, or he wouldn't have brought it up.

"Well, there's always rumors," I said. "People on this side of town got nothing better to do than spin yarns."

"You know what they're saying?"

"Nope." I could guess. Now it was my turn to pretend like I didn't care.

"They say she got knocked up and that she got rid of it."

"How would I know if she got knocked up?"

"She's your sister."

"Yeah, and it's not like she spills all her secrets to me these days. She ain't six years old anymore."

"Yeah, no shit," Steve mumbles. He's always had a sweet spot for Donna. Damned if his old lady Evie doesn't know it, too. She hates my sister. Steve continues, uninvited:

"I'm just saying, you know- if she's your sister, it's like she's my sister too…"

"Yeah, right. You feel real brotherly about her. I'm aware."

"No, shut up, buddy. I'm just saying- I heard about those kind of places. They ain't safe, they ain't clean. Girls bleed out all over the place and die. There were these girls downtown- you know, _those_ kind of girls- who just disappeared and no one ever heard from them again. People say they bled to death and those so-called doctors just dumped their bodies."

"My sister ain't one of _those_ kind of girls," I tell him. He's talking about hookers.

"Take it easy, man. I know that. I'm just saying…"

"She doesn't' tell me anything. Tighten the fuckin'bolts, will you?"

I hadn't thought about it much- I'd been trying not to- until Steve put it in my head. When I got home that night, and then my sister got home after me, I couldn't stop looking her up and down trying to see if anything was different about her.

She looked the same to me. She is a pretty girl. She's a redhead like me, but lighter. Her hair is the color of honey. We both have our dad's eyes- the color of the sky about to rain. Everything about both of us is our dad, really. I don't know how our mom can stand to look at us some days.

"What?" Donna said to me.

"What?"

"You're looking at me funny. And it ain't just 'cause you're funny-looking either."

I popped my eyebrow up, even though I didn't have a damned thing that was intelligent to say.

"I was just thinking- how far behind are you in school?"

"That's not what you were thinking about. Don't try to snow me, Two-Bit. A couple of semesters now."

"You should go back. I'll get a job."

She smirked at that.

"Go to hell," I said to her. "I can get a job."

"Didn't say you couldn't. Simmer down. You're closer to graduating and I already got a job. Let's just leave it lay. Maybe I'll go back later."

That's when I realized there was nothing on the outside that was different about her. I could look at her all night- and probably creep her the hell out doing so- and I'd never see it. It was in the way she talked: inside she was all torn up, just like Steve Randle had figured. She'd written off a part of herself- the part that got to be a kid and have crushes and drink sodas at the drive-in. She was older at sixteen and a half than our mother was at forty-three.

She lived a secret life. Somewhere during that summer of the Socs, I had lost track of her. I made a promise to myself then to find her and maybe bring her back.

* * *

But the summer of the Socs continued, and I'll admit I got caught up for a while with the whole thing with Ponyboy, and Dally, and Johnny. And then Dally and Johnny dying, and then the thing with Sodapop and Sandy. I let my sister go about her business while I was caught up in mine. It was early winter by the time I decided I needed a drink and that the place to get one would be the place she was working downtown.

"I can't serve you," she said when I sat down on the other side of the bar from her. "You ain't twenty-one."

"You can't serve anybody. You ain't eighteen. Get me a beer."

"I'm not the bartender, Two-Bit. You think they let me tend bar? I just clean up. Wipe tables, fill bowls with peanuts."

"They keep you around just to do that?"

"You going to lay me out if I tell you the clientele likes her pretty face?" The real bartender arrived. He was probably my dad's age, which meant I could lay him out easily but it wouldn't be polite.

I shook my head. "I just came in for a drink."

"This your brother, Donna?"

My sister nodded.

"Then you ought to know how old he is. Do I need to card him?"

"Make him a Shirley Temple," she said with a grin. "Maybe put an extra cherry in it. That's what I'd do."

I flipped her the bird and the bartender poured me a beer.

"Nice place you got here," I said to her after her boss ambled away. "Wiping tables and filling peanuts sounds like a pretty easy gig."

"You saying I'm lying? If you must know, I also get to clean the bathrooms. That, they could never pay me enough to do." She pauses for a beat, like she's debating whether to tell me something. She shrugs to herself and rolls the dice. "I also change sheets."

I make a show of looking around the bar for any beds that might be changing. I turn back to her and toss my hands up in mock confusion.

"You know he's got rooms upstairs, Two-Bit."

"Actually, I did not know that. I suppose if you had asked me, I could've guessed correctly, but if you're implying that I'm familiar with these particular rooms…"

She grins in spite of herself.

"I was implying that you could've guessed correctly."

"Are they rooms for rent by the hour or does he have himself a flock of girls? And- more importantly- is he grooming you to be one of them?"

"He ain't grooming me for jack shit. He wants me to go back to school, like you. I think letting me change the sheets and clean the bathrooms is his idea of scaring me straight. He knows Dad."

"Does he?" I take a sip of my beer.

"Yeah, or knew him. Hasn't hung out with him lately or anything. He gave me a last known address."

"Did you go looking?"

She nods. "Yeah, but they cleared out years ago."

"They?" I crack a peanut and try to toss and catch it, making like I don't give a rat's ass about what she's going to tell me.

"He says Dad's remarried. He has other kids now."

"Well, bully for him. So, this guy thinks he's being fatherly to you by letting you clean toilets and make beds?"

"It could be worse, Two-Bit."

"Yeah, you could be a junior in high school- reading books and writing papers."

"Like you'd know."

I love her. She's the coolest girl I know. Probably the dumbest, too. Not dumb, I guess, but pig-headed. I don't know what she's trying to prove working in this place though.

"So, you need a ride home?"

"It's only seven. I work till midnight. You ain't hanging out in here drinking that long."

"I'll take very small sips."

She rolls her eyes up into her head and waves me away with her hand.

"Midnight," I say to her. "I'm going to go get a paper and some cigarettes."

"And anything else you can fit into your inside jacket pocket, I'd guess."

"Something like that. You need anything?"

"Get me a candy bar."

"Will do," I told her, and hopped down from my barstool. I gave her a little salute as I turned towards the door. Donna just rolled her eyes again and took my empty glass from the bar.


	3. Chapter 3

SE Hinton owns Two-Bit and his "kid sister".

Three-

By 11:30, that section of Tulsa was lit up like a Christmas tree and maybe I was too. I'd stopped and read the paper in a diner two blocks down from Donna's bar, and then got her a candy bar and me an ass-pocket of brandy at a liquor store on the other side of the street. Aside from that, I couldn't tell you what I did for four and a half hours. My head's like that sometimes. I just lose track of what I'm doing.

Donna was waiting for me in the doorway to the bar. I guess she finished work early.

"Been waiting long?" I asked her as she hoped in on the passenger side. I tossed her a Mars bar.

She unwrapped it and took a bite, answering me with her mouth full: "Just a few minutes."

"You know it don't look right- you standing outside of that bar at night."

"It don't look right me waiting around inside either. I needed some air."

Always has to argue.

"Come on, smart ass. Let's get you home. Time for your beauty sleep."

She shook her head. "Not yet. Just drive for a little while. I want to look at the lights."

I didn't believe that for a second- that all she wanted was to look at lights. First off, they were the same damned lights she saw every night when she left work. Second, I could feel something- it was in the way she was frowning straight ahead and chewing on that candy bar.

"Where're we going?" I asked her.

She didn't hesitate. "Across the river." And then, "I broke into his house."

"Who's house?"

"Ritchie's. The guy from Oklahoma City." She doesn't call him 'the Guy Who Knocked Her Up', but I guess that doesn't mean anything. It's the first time she's mentioned him since the day we went down there. "It's his parent's house, but- yeah- I broke in."

"What'd you take?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. I just looked around. I walked all around that great, big house until I felt convinced that I could never belong in a place like that. It's huge- like a cave."

"What do you mean you'd never belong in a place like that?" That's the thing about big brothers and little sisters. As the big brother, you get socialized to believe she's meant to be treated like a princess. No one had to convince me that Donna deserved to be living in a castle. Donna's being weird and moody wasn't going to convince me otherwise.

"All last school year and half the summer, while you and your boys were doing battle with the Socs, I had a thing with Ritchie. We never told anyone."

"And he never took you to his house either," I said. "You had to break in after he ditched you. That's a high-class gentleman right there, Donna."

"Never brought him to meet you and Mom, either."

"So, is that where we're going now? To scope out Ritchie's parent's place?"

"No, I'm done with that. I didn't get caught and so I figured I had a talent for it maybe. There's another place I want to look at."

I couldn't stop myself from grinning. I thought I was some hot shit because I could swipe anything I needed out of the five-and-dime. Here's my little sister breaking into Soc's houses- and doing what? Just walking around? Like she's doing it for the exercise. Like she's practicing for something even bigger.

* * *

She gave me directions once we crossed to the south side, into one of those oil-money neighborhoods with manicured trees and houses set half a block back from the street.

I felt uneasy just being there. A car like mine sticks out like a sore thumb in a place where the drivers own new Corvairs and Austin Healeys. My car was noisy too. I kept watching for porch lights to come on as we drove past the houses.

"Here," my sister said as we came up on a red brick mansion that looked big enough to be an apartment by my standards.

I pulled up to the curb.

"You know these people, Donna?"

"Doesn't matter. They ain't home," she said and gestured with her hand. "Go around back. We can't be seen on the street. God, your car is a noisy piece of shit."

There was a thin crust of frost on the ground and so I was weary about pulling into the driveway. For a few hours into the morning, anyone coming from the street would be able to see that someone had pulled in. I didn't even know if these Soc neighborhoods had alleys. I crept up a side street and discovered that- low and behold- there was a side entrance behind a white privacy fence. I pulled in just far enough that the fence hid my car.

We got out and I followed Donna. She opened the gate and closed it again once we were both through. Everything seemed frozen. The backyard, which must have sported a hell of a flower garden in warm weather, was cleared of dead plants. There were some manicured shrubs and they reminded me of bears standing on their hind-quarters looking over us.

There was a large set of glass doors that led out onto the veranda, but Donna went to the side to the kitchen. She turned the knob and it opened. I had a hard time believing that was just dumb luck.

It burned me a little that, even as a cat burgler, I had to enter through the servant's door. It had my dander up when we stepped inside. I was ready to do some damage.

"What are we looking for?" I asked Donna.

She shrugged. "I usually check the fridge, although these people ain't much for leftovers."

"I think I'll check the liquor cabinet."

She took her shoes off by the door. I thought it was funny, but I followed her lead. We walked in stockinged feet to the kitchen.

It was dark and the heavy cabinets made it seem darker. Donna went straight to the refrigerator. She pulled her sleeve down over her hand so as not to leave prints, I guess.

"So the expensive stuff's up in the bedrooms, ain't it?" I asked.

"I don't know. I never take anything more than a bite to eat."

"You don't take anything?"

She turned her back to me, shaking her head. She had a mouthful of something that she was chewing. She held out a plate to me. It was sliced roast beef.

I took a piece and asked her, "You just break in for the snacks then?"

"I guess I do it because I'm curious. They're funny people. I want to know what makes 'em tick."

"Kid, I can tell you what makes 'em tick: cold, hard cash. Money- and you're going to find out just how much of it they have if you ever get caught and go to court."

Donna frowned. She put the roast beef back in the fridge.

"I knew I shouldn't have brought you," she said.

She walked past me into a formal dining room that was about the size of our entire house. The table was set for breakfast. Whoever owned the house was only out for the evening.

"They'll be on their way back," I whispered.

"I know. Don't take nothing off the table. They'll blame the help."


End file.
